In this continuation of his first lecture, Gary points out that if the biblical God is not recognized in a culture, something else will always take His place.
In debates on subjects where there are fundamental disagreements, several basic preliminaries must be established before a meaningful discussion can take place. The first principle is to establish the starting point for the ultimate authority used in a debate. The following fictional story points out that not all assumed authorities are ultimate but often rely on authorities that are derivative, suspect, and arbitrary:
A certain factory worker had the responsibility of blowing the whistle every day at precisely 12:00 noon. In order to be sure of the correct time, he set his own watch by a clock on the wall of a local jewelry store. After doing this for some time, it occurred to him that the jewelry store owner had to have some standard by which he could set his clock. Thus, one day when he was in the store, he inquired of the owner, “Sir, how do you know what time to set your clock?” The jewelry store owner replied, “Well, you see, on the other side of town there is a factory and every day precisely at noon they blow a whistle….”
What fundamental, ultimate, authoritative, interpretive touchstone principle is being used to evaluate life in general when there is a debate over facts, motives, and morals in competing worldviews? If any one of these supposed standards (reason, logic, or science) is chosen, what ultimately legitimizes them as foundational starting points? How can they be accounted for given materialistic assumptions about the nature of reality? What are they checked against to know if they are valid standards of thinking or whether they are operating properly?
If a person begins with a faulty premise (any faulty premise will do), then his use of reason, logic, and science could lead logically, reasonably, and scientifically to the execution of the aristocracy and those associated with it, as happened in the French Revolution, or the extermination of an entire ethnic group, as happened in the Holocaust. Christians can account for reason, logic, and the scientific method (investigation) because there is something/someone more fundamental that gives them meaning and allows them to work—the God of the Bible. “A proper epistemology [theory of knowledge] will thus give high weight to Scripture, observation, and logic. These are all God-given and will thus be in harmony; they form the touchstone of our knowledge.”[1]
Why It Might Be OK to Eat Your Neighbor
The most damning assessment of a matter-only cosmos devoid of a Creator is that we got to this place in our evolutionary history by acts of violence whereby the strong conquered the weak with no one to support or condemn them. Why It Might Be OK to Eat Your Neighbor repeatedly raises the issue of accounting for the conscience, good and evil, and loving our neighbor. It’s shocking to read what atheists say about a cosmos devoid of meaning and morality.
Buy NowIn this continuation of his first lecture given to a high school class, Gary points out that religion will always exist in society. If the biblical God is not recognized in a culture, something else will always take His place. Even atheism is a religion, despite the denials of its adherents.
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[1] John Byl, God and Cosmos: A Christian View of Time, Space, and the Universe (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2001), 8.